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Jemean
Jemean is a mashup language (that is, a language designed by taking aspects of several natlangs (preferably of different language families) and combining them together), which takes its vocabulary and half its grammar from Japanese, and the phonology, morphology, and the other half of grammar from the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family (most notably Czech). Setting In all honesty, I have created this language for a potential story that I had in mind, which may or may not involve a kingdom inspired by those in tzarist Russia and feudal Japan. Other than that, there is little background to this conlang. Phonology + Alphabet Jemean may be written with either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet. Phonotactics + Orthography * In polyphthongs, the Cyrillic letter Ь'' can only be used after hard (non-palatalized) vowels, otherwise ''Й is used. * W'' is usually used in diphthongs and very rarely (if at all) as a stand-alone consonant. * ''Ś is the final form of Š'', as is ''Ź of Ž''. * The four soft vowels are usually written in the "J-Vowel" form, but can be exchanged for the diacritical version. * ''Ŋ/Ng is always used before G'', ''Ħ, and K''. * ''N(soft vowel) and Ň''(hard vowel) are two distinct versions of the same sound. Do not confuse them! * ''R may be used as a vowel, e.g. krt (крт) - enemy * The letters Й'', ''Ь, and Ҥ'' may not begin words. * ''Ju always replaces iw. Basic Grammar Nouns Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine, and can be put into three categories, physical, ideological, ''and ''spiritual. *''Physical nouns refer to objects, people, materials, and other objects that are tangible. E.g. ''sešk (сэшк) - stone. *''Ideological nouns refer to non-tangible nouns, like shapes, locations and sounds. E.g. ''jucú (юцӱ) - house. *''Spiritual'' nouns refer to ideas, emotions, and non-sensory phenomena. This category does not have plurals. E.g. kasa (каса) - self-worth. Aside from the lack of plurals in the spiritual category, the categories are largely arbitrary. In regards to gender, masculine nouns usually end in a consonant, e'', or ''o, while feminine nouns end in a, á, i, í, u, ú, or a diphthong ending in j''. Exceptions exist, however, and will be marked in the dictionary with their correct gender, or with (m/f) if they can take either. Plurals Singular nouns follow the nominative-accusative alignment, and thus when used as agents, they retain their nominativity (subjecthood) in both transitive and intransitive clauses. Plurals, however, follow the ergative-absolutive alignment, and thus plural agents are the subjects of intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs. Declensions Nouns decline by case, number and gender, along with the final letter of their dictionary (singular nominative) form. For all tables, the rule is to affix certain letters to the end to decline them. *If the final letter is a consonant other than ''j, see Table 1. *If it is e'' or ''o, and the noun is singular, see Table 2a. If it is plural, drop the vowel, then see Table 2b. *If it is a, i, ''or ''u, and the noun is singular, see Table 3a. If it is plural, move that vowel to the next last vowel (i'' changes to ''j, u'' to ''w) or remove it if the next last vowel is nearly the same, then see Table 3b. If the final vowel is instead á'', ''í, or ú'', shorten that vowel so that it loses its accent, then check for number. *If it is ''j, drop it, then see Table 4. *If the noun is plural vocative feminine, move the vowel that was before j to the next last vowel (e/i -> j, o/u -> w) or remove it if the next last vowle is nearly the same. For example: Verbs The dictionary form of verbs consists of the verb root (which always ends in a consonant) combined with ''-o''. There are three classes of regular verbs: *''Class I'' verbs have as their penultimate letter b, g, d, k, p, ''or ''t. E.g. íko (ӥко) - go. *''Class II'' verbs have v, ħ, z, ž, s, š, f, c, ''or ''þ. E.g. jaso ''(ясо) - translate *''Class III verbs have h, l, m, n, w, r, ''or ''j. E.g. inro (инро) - sleep Regular Verb Conjugation *The affixes in Level 1 Conjugation replace the final o'' when they conjugate. There are two forms of each L1 Conjugation, the ''basic and the polite. The polite form is used between strangers and informal settings, while the basic form is for friends, family, and intimates. *The affixes in Level 2 Conjugation then come after that to conjugate in agreement to (pro)nouns. The conjugation for You (formal) is only used for addressing superiors and other people not intimately connected to the speaker. *The adparticles in Level 3 Conjugation further conjugate the verb by modality, tense, and mood. When multiple forms are used for polite verbs (e.g. near future subjunctive), the last prepaticle before the verb and the first postparticle after must be in polite form. When either of the future forms are combined with the past tense of the verb, the result will be the future perfect tense; the (plu)perfect form cannot be combined with the future forms to achieve this. Level 3 Conjugation, even though optional, holds for all verbs, regular, irregular, and semiregular. Irregular Verbs There are exactly three irregular verbs in the whole of the Jemean language: dzo (дзо) - be copula, mro (мро) - see, and šro ''(шро) - know locations. *''Dzo is automatically polite, and thus has no "polite" form. *The verbs all have their own rules for Level 1 Conjugation. For Level 2 Conjugation of non-basic verbs, mro and šro follow the Class III conjugation, while dzo follows Class III for the negative form and Class I for both past forms. Semiregular Verbs There are six classes of semiregular verbs, based on the mixture of Level 1 and 2 Conjugations. Semiregular verbs will be displayed in the dictionary with the format (A.B), where A is the class of the Level 1 Conjugation, and B that of Level 2. For example: Pronouns Pronouns decline similarly to nouns, but have only one class. In addition, pronouns also decline by the possessive and reflexive cases. (*)This pronoun is formed from the name of the addressee and the appropriate honorific (see below), prefixed on to the appropriate declension of the You (formal) row. It may be used to address a singular or plural amount of people. In addition, the null pronoun ja is used as a placeholder for pronouns used in the same context in consecutive non-clausal sentences. It is not used in very formal situations, however. Postpositions In postpositional phrases, the noun that the postposition relates to must agree with the case of the postposition itself. Most postpositions have multiple cases for different denotations, and thus have differences in pronunciation to differentiate. Adjectives + Adverbs Adjectives are expressed in noun form when describing something indeterminate. E.g. kaj (каь) - red (thing). However, they act as suffixes when they describe definite objects (nouns). E.g. dakkaj (даккаь) - red brick. Successive adjectives are suffixed in reverse order, as in dakkajħow (даккаьхоў) - big red brick (lit. brick-red-big). Comparatives are formed with one of the following suffixes, depending on the final letter of the target adjective: *Final letter is a consonant other than j'' - add ''jeri to the target adjective. *Final letter is e'' or ''o - add jori to the target adjective. *Final letter is a, i, or u'' (or their long forms) - add ''jari to the target adjective. *Final letter is j'' - add ''ri to the target adjective. Superlatives prefix i'' (''iš if the adjective already begins with i'')to the comparative form of the target adjective. Thus, ''jajmkroj (яймкроь) night becomes jajmkrojri (яймкроьри) night becomes jajmikrojri (яймикроьри) night. Conjunctions Questions + Answers Numbers + Counters Honorifics Null Honorifics Dishonorifics Clauses Dictionary Nature + The Heavens Example text Category:Languages